Former Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon wipes his eyes as he is seated next to his wife Flora Montes de Oca Alarcon as the verdicts are read in their perjury and voter fraud trial, Wednesday, July 23, 2014, at the Criminal Courts Building. (Photo by Michael Owen Baker/Los Angeles Daily News)

Former Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcón and his wife Flora Montes de Oca Alarcón were convicted Wednesday of living outside the politician’s council district boundaries and lying about their address — convictions that carry possible prison sentences.

The Los Angeles Superior Court jury delivered guilty verdicts on three voter-fraud counts and one perjury count against Richard Alarcón and two voter-fraud counts and one perjury count against his wife. Fourteen other counts sought by Deputy District Attorney Michele Gilmer were dismissed.

The Alarcóns left the courtroom without stopping to speak to reporters, the veteran politician simply answering “yes” over his shoulder when asked if he would appeal.

“The verdicts make no sense,” said Richard Overland, Flora Alarcón’s attorney, who speculated the jury’s split decision was an attempt at compromise.

But former Los Angeles District Attorney Steven Cooley, who filed the original charges, called the guilty verdicts a “vindication” for the prosecution.

The convictions mark a victory for prosecutors, who had been pursuing the case for more than four years. Then-DA Cooley filed charges in 2010, alleging the couple didn’t live in their Panorama City house in Council District 7 and instead lived in a nicer, larger residence in Sun Valley, about five miles away.

During the monthlong trial, defense attorneys argued that the Alarcóns were renovating their Panorama City home and intended to move into their Sun Valley residence when repairs were finished. By contrast, the prosecution portrayed Richard Alarcón, a former state Assembly member and senator, as an opportunistic politician who once boasted to a colleague that he won his City Council race despite not living in the district.

The guilty verdicts covered activity between November 2008 to May 2009, a time when Alarcón was running for re-election and the couple voted in local elections.

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The narrow time frame suggests “there must have been something that caused the jury doubt about the prosecution’s case,” said Stephen Fisch, a criminal defense attorney with Shevin Law Group in Los Angeles, who isn’t associated with the trial.

The split verdicts were read just before noon on the jury’s fifth day of deliberations. Initially, as the county clerk announced multiple “not guilty” verdicts, defense attorney Overland smiled and put an arm around Flora Alarcón, 49. Sitting nearby, Richard Alarcón, 60, wiped away a tear, apparently overcome at being exonerated.

But as the verdicts changed, and it became clear the prosecution had made its case, Alarcón’s face dropped and he grew pale.

Sitting a few feet away, his daughter Andrea began to cry and embraced her father once all the verdicts were read.

Sentencing is set for September. Alarcón faces up to six years in prison, while Flora Alarcón faces up to five years. Judge George Lomeli could impose probation, sparing the pair from serving time.

The trial took place just blocks from City Hall, where Alarcón served for three terms before being termed out last summer. Some on the City Council offered their reactions to Wednesday’s verdicts. “I am very saddened,” said City Councilman Tom LaBonge, who pointed out Alarcón was a rising star under ex-Mayor Tom Bradley. “Mayor Bradley is looking down from heaven with a tear in his eye.”

Councilman Mitch Englander was blunt when asked about the verdict.

“I think the rules are pretty simple,” Englander said. “They say to live in your district.”

Former City Councilwoman and controller Wendy Greuel testified for the prosecution, stating Alarcón asked her in 2007 to change her own district boundaries so his Sun Valley home would fall in his own district. The prosecution also called an egg expert, who testified an egg found in a refrigerator in the couple’s Panorama City house was at least a year old.